Matt W. Mill reads “Tender the River” ~ April 27 ~ 2:45 p.m. ~ Newburyport Lit Fest
April 15, 2024April 15, 2024
Dear Poet-Friends and Friends of the Powows,
Matt W. Miller will read from his new book Tender the River at 2:45 p.m., April 27, 2024, as part of the free Newburyport Literary Festival (April 26-28). But you needn’t wait until the afternoon, be our guest for Breakfast with the Poets, Central Congregation Church, 14 Merrimac Street, at 8:30 a.m. Avoid a parking ticket by using the city lot, entrance on Merrimac Street, just a block from the church. Or watch from home on Zoom,
9:00 – 12:30 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83708234743
1:30 – 5:00 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82834023766
Tender the River brings together the people Matt Miller knew growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts, the boys he went to school with, the parents, the coaches, teachers, cops, and storekeepers—in a cast which, if we think of poetry as the Greeks did, as drama, evokes nothing so much as Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. It is an unsettled Our Town, poignant in its naiveté, but also ravaged and hurting, misguided and almost, not quite, lost. The town of these poems, rife with racial tensions and bursts of violence, habitual in dredging of the past, would be at home, as well, in a Faulkner novel.
We love the way Matt Miller and his poems in Tender the River join two usually divergent strands of the American populous—lovers of football and lovers of poetry. Poets appreciate his poems, but there are some in his hometown of Lowell who remember his grandfather as a legendary football coach. Other poems have their powerful nexus on the athletic field,
Footballer or poet, you won’t want to miss Matt’s reading. Meet the poet, schmooze with the poets on April 27th, all day, starting with Breakfast with the Poets at 8:30. Or watch and listen from home on Zoom. Here, again, are the links:
9:00 – 12:30 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83708234743
1:30 – 5:00 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82834023766
We hope to see you in person or on Zoom, April 27,
Zara Raab
for the Literary Festival
